Anything and everything related to this Military Bench meet is warmly welcome here. 

Go here to sign up for the meet.

Looking forward to this meet. My goal is to up the 130kg from last spring by a couple of kilos.

this mbp-meeting will be my first goal for the year 2009. doing only a very light basic-bp-training since the last competition in dec. 2008. i think, i will not have a spotter. kind regards to all.

Only a few hours left to sign-up if anyone is still thinking about it.

Christian, thanks for signing up as a judge. Two more needed.

All lifters in this meet should now have received an e-mail with the upload details and other info. If you didn't get one or have any questions, please contact Kris <kristoffer@virtualmeet.net> ASAP.

Have a great meet everyone!

First lifter uploaded.

I will have to pull out of this meet at the last possible moment.

This is due to an low back injury I sustained whilst training last sunday, and is historic in the sense that I do believe it is only the second training-related injury I have ever suffered. 

I will be fine, feeling already 80% back to normal, but for a couple of days it was really agonizing. It took me like 5min to get out of bed in the morning due to the pain and the constant cramping.

I did calf-raises with a dip-belt, and the only thing I can think of was that the belt was a bit too high up, i.e. pressing on the lower vertebrae instead of putting the weight on the hips as it should. Let this be a warning to you: if you do use a dip-belt for anything, make sure it's on your hips, NOT on your lower back. 

Will be up and running soon, I bet.

All but one lifter is now uploaded. We're down at six lifters at the moment due to the unfortunate withdrawal of Måns above. The judging will probably commence on Tuesday.

The meet is now with the judges. As usual, the judges have seven days to complete the judges, i.e. by the end of March 4th. This was a rather small meet so it is possible that it will go a bit quicker, but we'll see.

As usual, you can follow the judging progress in real time in the box above the forums.

BIG THANKS to John McDonald and Ramon Gysin for signing up as the last judges.

The judging was completed some seven hours ago. Thanks to all the judges for a job well done!

I am on the road today and tomorrow, but the meet will be released Sunday the latest (as usual, this means Sunday night my local time for you Europeans).

Ok, the meet has been released, the rankings updated etc. etc.

Walter Kurda's years of benching experience were more than apparent as he took the barbell for a light spin with impressive style.  That Matt Reed only landed third with a military bench PR of 158.8kg (350lbs) is evindence enough that some impressive numbers were posted by Walter and his training partner Reinhold Schaumann-Kelch, both master age lifters. On the women's side, Jennifer Behr became the first woman to complete a virtual military bench meet and with a good result at that despite only making her first attempt.

On a more personal note, this was also my first meet after a year off training... guess how great that feels?

Great job from all participants!
The judging was helped greatly by the good quality of the videos. Walter and Matt: awesome lifting. Always in control. Matts last attempt was really close. I think if someone yelled at you at the right time you would have nailed it ;-)

Jennifers lift was really good and would rank very high in the regular bench press as well.

Looking forward to see more lifting from Kris and Reinhold.

Great job Walter and Reinhold, I guess I'm gonna have to step up my game with you two old-timers for the next military comp

Kris, excellent come back.  Very good lifting for being out for so long.

As always, thanks for your time and effort judges.

And thanks for the comments Christian.

Thanks Matt! Feels great to be back in the game, but plenty of work to do. I've been training like a good boy, but am having the predictable problem of finding time to update the journal I've started.  But it's done it's job so far I guess.

I'm amazed at finishing fourth in such a tight meet.